How ‘Waves’ Director Jirí Mádl Reconstructed the Dramatic Battle for Czechoslovak Radio in 1968

variety.com:

Matt Minton mminton@variety.com When “Waves” director and writer Jiří Mádl first came across the history of Czechoslovakian radio while studying journalism in college, he discovered something that didn’t add up. “I knew what happened in ‘68 and I knew that the radio had a very important role in those days,” Mádl said. “I knew that the [Soviet] troops came and they cut off the building … But I never saw the contradiction that the radio building was cut off.

So how did the [journalists] actually manage to broadcast?” That gap on the timeline, as Mádl puts it, was the impetus for years of research through archives, books and materials about the group of journalists from the International News Office of Czechoslovak Radio.

The subject of “Waves,” Czech Republic’s official entry for the 2025 Academy Awards, is the broadcast that changed the world and the journalists who risked their lives in the process.

One of the film’s most pivotal scenes tracks the Soviet tanks that invaded the country as hundreds of citizens surrounded the radio station, trying to prevent them from cutting off the broadcast.